I made a game!
I was tired!
It's totally gay!
By Ian on October 27, 2002 at 12:27 AM
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New Poll
There's a new poll, but this time there are no answers that insult me. You guys have really hurt my feelings in the past.
By Ian on October 25, 2002 at 4:33 PM
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Maybe...
This is interesting. Read it.
If the meme represents a replicator interacting within the environment of a species' culture (culture basically standing for all that species' combined/collective intellectual pursuits. Possibly on a level much more primitive than man, of course.), then a sufficiently technologically advanced species (such as humans) would offer memes a vehicle by which to manipulate genes, the basic fundamental vehicles of the memes themselves. In terms of complexity, that's a top-level effect of a pattern recursively affecting a lower-level element of that pattern, actively contributing to the top-level effect's own potential for evolution in future iterations of itself. Or more basically, it's memes saying "where we live is kinda less-than-perfect for us, so lets re-build where we live". Memes can cause man to alter man's own genes, conceivably to the benefit of meme replication. Crazy, right? In fact, Darwinian selection tells us that the effect of memes on genes would (admittedly, on the surface) seem to favour memes evolutionarily, because memes riding in better meme-spreading machines would become more dominant in a meme-altered gene pool, to coin a phrase.
We can take it back even farther. If we call all the effects of a gene on it's host body, other genes in the host body, other bodies, and the environment the gene's phenotype, then we can see that genes affect their environment to better suit the propagation of genes. Beaver Dams, caddis houses, the root systems of large plants - even the rise of the first oxygen-excreting proto-plants; these are all examples of how gene phenotypes have extended out into the larger world of the geological earth itself to make it better suit the needs of genes. So at what level does this backward trend cease? Does it ever? Memes are replicators that rely on the vehicles of genes in which to exist; genes are replicators that rely on a macro-chemical environment in which in develop. A chemical environment exists when atoms and then molecules come together. So in this we see the tempting possibility of complex life arising from the most cosmically common circumstances. Only studies of the tiniest levels of the universe can tell us if genes themselves are top-level manifestations of a more fundamental iterative pattern.
And what of the future of memes? What will their ultimate phenotypic effects on the environment of the physical universe be? Will a gene-vehicle like a human being eventually become usurped by the meme, evolving in ways that best benefit the promulgation of thought? Or, could the gene revolt? Evolve strategies to weaken the motility and fecundity of memes? Could that be what happened to Cro-Magnon man? Its early memes conquered by stubborn genes? (!)
As I see patterns emerge, I just find it so fascinating to see the way they travel backwards and forwards through events. Sometimes the context in which a pattern is revealed can mask that pattern's true significance. What is tiny on one level in broad on another, so it benefits to see the largest universe possible, and examine it as closely as you can - and compare notes. A lot of big gaps would probably fill themselves in for you as you went.
Now, there's a meme for you. Pass it on.
By Ian on October 20, 2002 at 12:46 AM
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Aye, there's the rub
I just watched The Matrix tonight for probably the 15th time. I'm not obsessive about the movie, but I never pass up the chance to watch it, so I'm racking up quite a few Matrix-hours, if you will.
My conclusion after this go-around is that The Matrix, as a film, really opened the door for captivating, insightful, intellectual, stylish and well-crafted speculative fiction to be made in a Hollywood to accustomed to churning out inane, illogical, testerone-fueled belches of the génre.
The trouble is, I don't think anything really went through the door. It's just standing there, open.
Oh well.
By Ian on October 19, 2002 at 11:58 PM
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Questions For The Ages - Answered!
Why is there a phone book lying in the middle of my kitchen floor?
Because beneath the phone book is a hole, from which - in the absense of phone books - bugs come out of.
Small, little black bugs with a basically horizontal white stripe acorss their backs. They seem to have beatle-esque wing cover dealies, but so far I haven't seen them flying around. I've only seen them walking all over everything like they own the place. I've been trying to find a hole in a window screen somewhere only to find that the little beasties are apparently living undearneath the lino in the kitchen.
But theyll pay. They'll pay.
By Ian on October 18, 2002 at 5:24 PM
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Is this thing on?
Anyone here familiar with meme theory? Anyone?
Basically, meme theory posits this: that just like DNA represents a chemical replicator that strives to spread duplicates of itself; ever evolving new & betters ways of doing so, there is recently evolved the capacity within human culture for a living unit of thought to exist as a replicator, actively striving against rival memes to gain prominence in the memepool: the minds of human beings!
Stay with me.
Tonight, I was making dinner and I spilt some ketchup. As I grabbed for a paper towel, I cried "Damn you to Christ!". Not one of the more threatening curses being bandied about in the world, is it? I mean, 'Damn you to Hell' is the big one, of course. But you've got endless derivatives of the themes: 'Damn you to Québéc', 'Damn you to store-brand cola' & 'Damn you to genital irregularities!' spring immediately to mind.
So suddenly I'm thinking about genes and memes and and what if: What if memes could split down the middle and recombine with other bits of meme, as genes will do in certain genetic accidents? Beause that would certainly explain why an otherwise fully socially-engineered guy like myself would suddenly try and damn someone (well, by "someone", I mean 'ketchup'), to the presence of a beloved being of universal benevolence. However fictional.
Unless... my new memes worship... SATAN!
BUM BUM BUM BUM!!!"*
* spooky. And kinda gay, I guess. I mean, like, bum-lover gay.
Next Week: Will there be more hallowe'en spookery on ianwallace.com? It's very unlikely.
By Ian on October 17, 2002 at 8:00 PM
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Eek!
I just had a horrifying thought: Think of the first sitcom a Friends star is a regular in, post-Friends. Won't it be awful?
By Ian on October 16, 2002 at 5:24 PM
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